The full UK state pension is currently worth £10,600 a year - here is how to make sure you can get as much as possible.
The state pension is currently paid to you when you turn 66 and many Brits will be relying on this as a guaranteed income when they reach retirement age.
To get the full state pension you need to have 35 full qualifying years of National Insurance Contributions (NICs) - you need 10 years to qualify for any state pension at all.
You usually get these by working and paying tax, and if you do not have these 35 years then you get less state pension than you anticipated.
If you’re worried that you won’t get the maximum state pension, there are some ways to give it a boost.
Add to your National Insurance record
The first step in seeing if you can boost your state pension is to check your NI records to see if you have any missing years.
You can check your NI records online at Gov.uk - you will need a Government Gateway account to check your NI records and pension forecast online.
You collect NI through working and paying it from your wages - you can also claim them too in certain instances.
If you’re nearing state pension age and don’t have a full record, you should first check if you can plug your NI gaps through national insurance credits.
Some credits are automatically added to your record when you claim certain benefits such as child benefits, others however you need to claim.
People who look after their grandchildren can have the parent's credits passed on to them as a way to top up their NI record.
You can also claim NI credits if you have been on Statutory Sick Pay, you are caring for a sick or disabled person, are a foster carer, or are on statutory maternity, paternity or adoption pay.
You should always check if you can claim free credits first before turning to buy them.
Make voluntary National Insurance payments
Voluntary contributions are a way of filling any gaps in your NI record - essentially you buy what you need to fill in the gaps from HMRC.
If you have savings and are approaching retirement age this may be a good option as you can spend a few thousand plugging the gaps and it could boost your state pension payments by tens of thousands.
Normally you can buy back up to six years, however at the moment you are able to plug back until 2006.
People have until April 5 2025 to plug their NI records as far back as 2006.
You should always ask for bespoke advice before making a decision.
Contact the free Future Pension Centre on 0800 731 0175 before buying any NI contributions to check if you'd benefit from plugging any gaps in your NI record.
If you're already at state pension age, contact the free Pension Service helpline on 0800 731 0469.
You can find out how you can make voluntary NI insurance contributions here.
Defer your state pension
If you defer, or delay, getting your state pension you could get a higher amount when you do claim.
In simple terms, deferring your state pension means not claiming it as soon as you are old enough to be eligible.
You are able to defer your pension for as long as you like, but by how much depends on how long you delay payments for and how much state pension you are entitled to.
If you are to get the new state pension, for every nine weeks you delay the payout rises by 1% so this could raise your state pension by an overall 5.8% a year.
According to PensionBee, this works out at an extra £11.82 a week at current rates if you deferred for a year and would give you an annual boost of £614.64.
However, this isn't an option for everyone.
People who claim certain benefits are unable to defer their state pension, these benefits include:
- Income support
- Pension credit
- Widow’s pension
- Universal Credit
The decision to defer depends on your own circumstances and some people may be better off whilst others won't.
Again, you should always ask for bespoke advice before making a decision.
Check if you have been underpaid
More than 230,000 women are thought to have been underpaid their state pension so you should check if you are one of them.
The underpayments were due to historic Department for Work and Pension (DWP) errors - the DWP is now taking steps to rectify this.
The errors were down to the old state pension system.
Under this, married women who built up a poor pension record could claim 60% of their husband's basic state pension.
These payments should have been automatically applied however in many cases this didn't happen.
The first thing to note is that this only applies to women who reached state pension age before April 2016 and on the basic state pension.
The DWP is working on repaying those affected and began doing this in January 2021.
However, you can contact the Pension Service if you think you are affected.
You can contact them by phone on 0800 731 0469 on Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm.
